The subject matter disclosed herein relates to industrial control systems, and more specifically, to controlling load rate of change for one or more industrial machines, such as turbomachinery.
Certain systems, such as an industrial control system, may control a load rate of change of one or more industrial machines. For example, one or more components of the industrial control system may control turbomachinery (e.g., turbine systems or generator systems) that may be included in an industrial system (e.g., a power generation system).
In some situations, a user-specified load rate of change for the turbomachinery may be maintained. The load rate of change may refer to a change of an amount of load (e.g., electrical power output to an electrical transmission or distribution grid, mechanical power output to an industrial machine, and so forth) that may be placed upon the turbomachinery (e.g., gas turbine, steam turbine, generator, and the like) per unit of time. To meet this load rate of change, the industrial control system may apply a fixed multiplier (e.g., a frame-specific constant such as 1.2× for a Frame 9FA turbine by General Electric Company®) corresponding to the given average load rate of change to a commanded load rate of change of the industrial system.
However, the fixed multiplier solution may be inadequate in certain situations. For example, applying the fixed multiplier may achieve the given average load rate of change for certain (e.g., larger) load changes. But it may be difficult to meet the given average load rate of change for smaller load changes. Additionally, while the given average load rate of change may be met for certain load changes, the fixed multiplier may not ensure that the given load rate of change will be maintained. For example, a number of variables, such as variations in ambient conditions, machine degradation, and/or operation on varying load paths, may be introduced which may affect a given load rate of change using the fixed multiplier solution.